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The Curry Report
November 10, 2010
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In This Issue
What President Obama Should Do Next
Understanding the 2010 Midterm Elections
Lessons of the Blue Dog Blowout
It Was the Tea Party Movement That Saved Democratic Control of the Senate
Tom Donohue: Obama's Tormentor
Republicans attempt to recruit alternative to Michael Steele
How Obama lost his voice, and how he can get it back
Why Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Win Won't Save His Career
For black men who have considered homicide after watching another Tyler Perry movie
Angela Burt-Murray: Essence Editor-in-Chief Resigns

What President Obama Should Do Next
 
Curry Headshot

By George E. Curry

NNPA Columnist        

 

 

For Republicans, the November 2 midterm elections were about 2012, not 2010. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made that clear in a speech to the Heritage Foundation. He said, "...The fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill, to end the bailouts, cut spending and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things is to put someone else in the White House."


Welcome to the 2012 slug fest. And with more than twice as many Democrats than Republican senators up for Senate re-election in two years, emboldened Republicans have their sights set on controlling the House, the Senate and the White House.


In order to stay in the White House, the president should adopt my 12-step recovery program:

 

1)      Stop making concessions before entering into negotiations with GOP leaders - The  November 18 Slurpee Summit has not been held at the White House and President Obama is already saying he's willing the extend the Bush tax cuts to the top 2 percent of Americans, the group least likely to place money back into an ailing economy. The time to make concessions is during the actual horse-trading, not in advance. (Obama and Republican leaders can't even agree on what beverage to serve at the upcoming meeting. During the recent campaign, the president called Republicans "Slurpee drinkers" whose brains freeze when it comes to economics. When asked at a news conference about the possibility of a post-election Slurpee Summit at the White House, Obama replied, "I might serve - they're delicious." But House Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner responded, "I don't know about a Slurpee. How about a glass of Merlot?")


 2)      Assemble a new communications team - It's embarrassing to see one of the most gifted speakers of this generation groping for words when trying to explain why the White House did a poor job of selling its accomplishments. Mr. President, read my lips: Your team has failed you - get a new one before it's too late. 


 3)      Ignore calls to move to the right - Whenever Democrats lose an election, there are inevitable suggestions that the party should move to the right. The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties. The under reported story of this election is that conservative Democrats, so-called Blue Dog Democrats, suffered the bulk of the losses, especially in House districts previously held by conservative Republicans. President Obama needs to be more of a populist.

 

4)      Make conservatives put up or shut up - It's one thing to campaign. It's quite another to govern. Many Tea Party candidates, including those cross-dressing as Republicans, have pledged to balance the budget while exempting defense funding and entitlements that make up 85 percent of the federal budget. Insist that they give specifics on how they can possibly balance the budget by attacking only 15 percent of the budget.


 5)      Use Vice President Joe Biden as the attack dog - Many presidents have used their vice presidents as their chief defenders. Richard Nixon had Spiro Agnew and George W. Bush used Dick Chaney in that capacity. Unchain Biden as your Defender-in-Chief while you continue to appear presidential.


 6)      Realize the public still trusts Democrats over Republicans on the big issues -  In May, a USA Today/Gallup poll showed that Americans trust Democrats over Republicans on most of the important issues facing America, including racial and ethnic discrimination, unemployment, the size and power of large corporations, health care, the environment and disengaging the U.S. from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The GOP was favored to deal with illegal immigration, the federal debt, terrorism and the size and power of the federal government.


 7)      Strengthen the coalition between Blacks, Latinos and Asians - That coalition was the key to Obama's 2008 victory when the majority of Whites voted for John McCain. Latinos returned Democratic Senators to power in Nevada and California. And Democrats can't be successful in 2012 without paying special attention to people of color, who are expanding their share of the electorate. 


 8)      Re-engage young voters - Like people of color and women, this is a critical part of the Democratic base. Looking toward 2012, its necessary to mobilize young voters to counter the edge older voters provide Republicans. 


 9)      Be a fighter (to be used in conjunction with Point #5) - Americans admire fighters, even if they disagree with them. President Harry S Truman was often depicted as giving his opponents hell. He explained, "I never give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."  President "No Drama Obama" needs to exude some fire. Ignore the fear that many Whites don't want to view their president as "an angry Black man." The bully pulpit is the last place you need to sound professorial. Give 'em hell.


 10)  Deploy First Lady Michelle Obama to more events - In many ways, Michelle Obama connects better with audiences than the president. Like her husband, she has two Ivy League degrees. Unlike the president, she comes across passionate and unscripted. It's time to take her out of the garden and expand her portfolio beyond military families and obesity.   

 

11)  Stay encouraged - Remember that Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, whose approval ratings were almost identical to that of President Obama at this point in their tenures at the White House,  suffered midterm shellackings but bounced back to get easily re-elected to a second term. Obama can also get his groove back.


 12)  Remain engaged with the Black Media - Part of the problem this year was President Obama's effort to arouse the Black community came on CP Time. It was what former Nixon aide John Halderman called TL-square - too little, too late. African-Americans need to be courted all year, not just when Democrats are desperate. Given the president's lateness, perhaps this will end questions about whether he's Black enough.

 

 


George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

 

  

 

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Understanding the 2010 Midterm Elections
Voters

 

By George E. Curry

� TheDefendersOnline.com

November 9, 2010


Of the tsunami of mistakes made by the media in interpreting the midterm election results, the one that rises to the top is the assertion that Democrats lost more than 60 House seats in part because the African-American portion of the electorate declined from 13 percent in 2008 to 10 percent on November 2.


The problem isn't that those reports are not technically correct - they are - but journalists and commentators were using the wrong yardstick. Midterm election turnout is always lighter than voting in presidential years, especially a presidential election of historic proportion.

 

 

READ MORE 

 

 


Lessons of the Blue Dog Blowout

Evan Bayh

Senator Evan Bayh Wants Democrats to Move to the Right


By Ari Melber

� The Nation

November 3, 2010


It was a blowout. By winning more than sixty seats in the House, with close races still trickling in Wednesday morning, the anti-Obama wave of 2010 has already secured a prominent place in American history. Even conservative estimates-say low sixties-will place the 2010 midterms well above some of the largest shifts in party power in the modern era. This is bigger than the Newt revolution, which netted fifty-four seats in 1995, and signifcantly higher than the forty-nine seats that Democrats took after Watergate. In fact, you have to go back to the dramatic backlash to FDR in 1938 to find a midterm wave larger than the angry tsunami that crested on Tuesday. (The GOP netted eighty-one seats that year.) So what does that mean?


Since so much of our political discourse lives in an imagined future, like some sort of really annoying version of T2, analysts were spinning their explanations before most ballots were cast.


Today's New York Times has analysis from Evan Bayh, a retiring centrist/moderate/presidential aspirant, which was obviously penned before polls closed in order to make it to press. "We were too deferential to our most zealous supporters," he bemoans, (huh?), and Democrats "over-interpreted our mandate."  Bayh's solution is to focus more on GOP priorities like tax reform, government spending freezes and entitlement cuts. Third Way, a think tank that was literally founded to push Democrats to the center, has been pushing a similar line this week.


It is truly bizarre, because on Tuesday, voters rejected the very Blue Dog Democrats who have been following that exact approach.

 

READ MORE


  

It Was the Tea Party Movement That Saved Democratic Control of the Senate

 
Christine O'Donnell
Delaware Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell

By John Nichols

� The Nation

November 4, 2010


The Tea Party movement gave the Republican Party an energy boost and some genuine grassroots support.

But it did a lot more for the Democratic Party.


With Republicans taking complete control of the US House and most of the states, the only thing that kept the 2010 mid-terms from being worse for Democrats than the 1994 "Republican Revolution" was the GOP failure to take the Senate [1].

And for that the Democrats have the Tea Party movement to thank.


Tom Donohue: Obama's Tormentor

    Tom Donohue C of C

If the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has his way, the President's change agenda is finished

By David Leonard

� Business Week

November 3, 2010


Two days before Halloween, a squadron of protesters from the radical feminist group CodePink showed up in front of the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. The agitators, who were dressed as vampires, produced masks bearing the craggy visage of Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber's white-haired chief executive. Through the wonders of Photoshop, they had given him a wicked set of eyebrows, sharp fangs, and a red-stained mouth.


The protesters unfurled a black "Chamber of Horrors" banner and chanted, castigating the chamber for spending upwards of $50 million to help flip the leadership of the House of Representatives from Democratic to Republican. "Help! Help! Dracula Donohue is sucking the blood from me and you!" they wailed. "Help! Help! The Chamber of Commerce is making this election even worse. Help! Help! We're under attack. We want our democracy back!"


The 72-year-old Donohue could hear it all from his fourth-floor office, where he was trying not to gloat on the eve of a midterm election that was about to come out almost exactly as he hoped. "It sounds like our friends are here," he said.


The head of the Chamber of Commerce-the nation's largest business trade association, with an annual budget of $258 million-doesn't mind being called a bloodsucker or inspiring howls of protest. To the contrary, the opposition lets his members know he's doing his job-which makes them more likely to give money to his organization.

During the last two years, empowered by $350 million in donations from corporations such as Dow Chemical (DOW), Goldman Sachs (GS), Chevron Texaco (CVX), and many other anonymous sources.

 

 

READ MORE





Republicans attempt to recruit alternative to Michael Steele

 Michael Steele

 

By Chris Cillizza

� Washington Post

November 10, 2010


There is an effort underway among prominent Republican National Committee members to recruit a serious alternative to Chairman Michael Steele if and when he decides to stand for a second term early next year, according to sources familiar with the conversations.


READ MORE


 How Obama lost his voice, and how he can get it back
 
Obama Speaking
 


By Marshall Ganz

�  Los Angeles Times

November 3, 2010



President Obama entered office wrapped in a mantle of moral leadership. His call for change was rooted in values that had long been eclipsed in our public life: a sense of mutual responsibility, commitment to equality and belief in inclusive diversity. Those values inspired a new generation of voters, restored faith to the cynical and created a national movement.

Now, 18 months and an "enthusiasm gap" later, the nation's major challenges remain largely unmet, and a discredited conservative movement has reinvented itself in a more virulent form.

This dramatic reversal is not the result of bad policy as such; the president made some real policy gains. It is not a consequence of a president who is too liberal, too conservative or too centrist. And it is not the doing of an administration ignorant of Washington's ways. Nor can we honestly blame the system, the media or the public - the ground on which presidential politics is always played.

It is the result, ironically, of poor leadership choices.

READ MORE


 


 
Why Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Win Won't Save His Career

Jesse Jackson Jr.



By: Sylvester Monroe

� The Root

November 4, 2010


Jackson easily held on to his seat in this week's midterm elections. But the scandal-ridden congressman "could'a been a contender" on a much larger scale. Some say he has only himself to blame.


In the immortal words of the late, great New York Yankee pundit Yogi Berra, "It was like d�j� vu all over again." Under a blinding media glare, yet another prominent American politician squirmed to sweep aside a damaging extramarital affair. This time it was Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., deflecting questions about a two-year-old indiscretion with a blond Washington, D.C., restaurant hostess."The reference to a social acquaintance is a private and personal matter between me and my wife that was handled some time ago," Jackson said at the time.


Newspaper headlines quickly proclaimed: "Like Father, Like Son," referring to his famous father's rumored flings with singer Roberta Flack and other women whose names never surfaced.



READ MORE

For black men who have considered homicide after watching another Tyler Perry movie

Tyler Perry





By Courtland Milloy
Washington Post
November 8, 2010


Can anyone name a movie that came out recently starring a black man who wasn't a sociopath? Someone who had a terrific screen presence, like a young Paul Robeson? And he portrayed a character who was complex and fully drawn? Did he respect black women, too?


Anybody see that movie? I didn't. But surely it's out there somewhere, right? An alternative to those Tyler Perry films portraying black men as Satan's gift to black women? But where is it?


READ MORE



  

 

Angela Burt-Murray: Essence Editor-in-Chief Resigns

 Angela Burt-Murray


By Ruth Manuel-Logan

November 5, 2010

 

Angela Burt-Murray editor-in-chief of Essence magazine exited stage left today, resigning from her post after a five-year-run.


Apparently, Burt-Murray summoned her editors late this afternoon and made the big announcement that she was moving to Atlanta with her family. Insiders say Burt-Murray had actually laid the groundwork for her resignation last July and wanted to keep it under wraps.


At the time that Burt-Murray began her resignation process, the magazine was being burned at the stake for placing a white woman at the helm of its fashion department. African-American women were up in arms about Burt-Murray's controversial decision to hire Ellianna Placas, who had previously workedat O: The Oprah Magazine and US Weekly, as Essence's fashion director. Essence was forced to deal with the cyber ire of black women on Facebook and other Afro-centric websites.

READ MORE

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